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Post by thwhtguardian on May 2, 2024 16:13:12 GMT -5
I think the only negative I have about Space Ghost is that I wish they had gotten someone like Steve Rude or Chris Samnee for the art. Johnathan Lau had a decent sense of action and his figures were good but I just can't shake the feeling that Space Ghost should be done in a more cartooned style.
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Post by thwhtguardian on May 2, 2024 16:02:58 GMT -5
Jed Mackay's out of left field revelation on the identity of the new Moon Knight had me wondering how he'd stick the landing...and boy did he ever. Using that character suddenly made perfect sense and the way it fit into how characters are reacting to Moonknight's death was just perfect. I don't know where the story will go now that the mystery is over and it apparently tying into an event called Blood Hunt(I don't know what that is and I hope it doesn't suck) but I'm definitely locked in and looking forward to see where it all goes.
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Post by thwhtguardian on May 2, 2024 15:46:18 GMT -5
Man, I really enjoyed Perry's debate in the House of Brainiac Special. "How do you convince them that their lives are connected to the people on the other side of their shared wall?" "How do you convince someone of something so obvious?" How indeed Perry? It might feel a bit on the nose for some but it definitely resonated with me and illustrates again just why I love Mark Russell. I know you're feelings on Superman Slam_Bradley but it's well worth checking this out for the Perry White story.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 29, 2024 19:33:19 GMT -5
I've got mixed feelings on the flippers and speculators. If the dealer ordered a large ratio variant, say 100 copies, and is used to having slow sales around halfway through, I think he'd be glad if a flipper or speculator walked in, took 10-20 of them, he gets his sales because he couldn't rely on the foot traffic. I've seen customers order books, or put them on a pull-list, and then never show up and since they didn't pay in advance the dealer is stuck with unsold books. Sometimes the flippers and speculators serve a purpose, and besides, some dealers also hoard new books when they become hot, removing them from the new issues shelves, themselves becoming the speculators and flippers. If there's unsold copies sitting around at lots of dealers, the books likely not going to multiple printings. And often, it's the big volume dealers like Midtown, Lonestar, DCBS, Westfield, etc. who are the ones getting the high buy in variants, not the local small business owner run shops who don't do the volume normally to quality. Some do if they specifically have a customer who requests it and who shoulders the cost of the buy in, but all of that is figured into the preoder numbers and thus the print run. It's the books that don't get the preorder numbers (probably because they don't have 100 different variants or high buy in variants) that get late buzz or unexpected buzz and disappear from shelves quickly where the flipper effect becomes a negative issue for retailers trying to satisfy their regular customers' demand for the book. The complaint I hear over and over again from the retailers I know about flippers is they are not regular customers. They provide no reliable and repeated revenue flow for their shop. They only show up when one of those books hits looking to scavenge copies, which while the short term revenue may be nice, if it prevents those regular reliable customers from getting copies and lowers customer satisfaction, it may hurt the shop long term if that regular customer has to shop elsewhere to get what they want. And for most shops, it is those long term steady repeated sales that keep them in business, not one time quick hits. -M Yeah, there's no real positive for flippers.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 28, 2024 7:49:58 GMT -5
That is a good question! Here's one that doesn't quite qualify, but has always irked me: When DC released Wednesday Comics as a tabloid, I enjoyed it but found (as I usually do from Marvel and DC anthology titles) that the near-exclusive focus on superhero titles made the overall package too homogenous in tone. I'd have loved to have seen a page devoted to single-tier humor strips (Binky, Super-Turtle, Sugar & Spike, etc), and ... Wednesday Comics came out the same time as the Jonah Hex film! Now, that crashed and burned pretty much, but of course that wasn't known in advance, so why was there no cross-promotion at all? A single Jonah Hex page would have both added more variety to the series and also hyped the film a bit and maybe attracted some attention from the half-dozen people who actually watched the movie. Sgt. Rock and Kamanadi did make it in there for non-Super-hero features. Not a lot granted, but enough that it wasn't exclusively super-heroes. And I have a feeling that series was more about let's ask a creative team what feature they would like to do than let's get a creative team for x feature. -M Also, the Adam Strange feature definitely felt like a classic pulpy sci-fi strip than a superhero comic.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 26, 2024 16:36:59 GMT -5
Dick Tracy was decent in a bare bones detective sort of way. I think it would have been a much stronger opening if we knew a little bit more about why Trueheart died so that the mystery was a bit more compelling.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 25, 2024 16:31:45 GMT -5
Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives! #1Written by Dan Watters and Ram V Art by Mathew Roberts Summary: Investigative Reporter Kate Marsden has tracked serial killer Darwin Collier all the way to the jungles of Peru but finds another monster. Plot: Dan Watters and Ram V's take on the Creature of the Black Lagoon succeeds in every way that the earlier Image adaptation of Dracula by James Tynion IV failed: it's fresh and exciting while still feeling recognizable as the original. Now, perhaps I'm being too harsh on Tynion's earlier work, by it's very nature adapting Dracula is going to necessarily harder as it's been made into a film purportedly over 200 times and has nearly as many comic book adaptations which obviously means finding a new angle is going to be tough. On the other hand the Gillman while certainly visually iconic as a Hollywood Monster only had three films originally by Universal, the latter two of which are little known or seen, a cameo in Monstersquad and the recent film The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro so as such has much more room for exploration and Watters and Ram V do just that, moving the creature to Peru instead of Brazil and adding in a plot of a reporter who is tracking down a serial killer who drowns their prey who just so happens to encounter the creature. Their's a great feeling of intrigue and true crime that is completely new but the myth of an aquatic off shoot of man remains and his mode of killing being similar to the serial killer brings some interesting comparisons that I'm excited to see developed. We're only on the first issue but this feels like something you shouldn't miss if you're a fan of the Universal monsters. Art: Where Roberts really succeeds here are in the faces of his characters. The expressions of the characters are so vivid and readable that you're able to learn so much about the people with out needing any dialogue or narration which is no doubt a huge help to Watters and Ram V as it frees them to move the plot forward while Roberts gives us the needed characterization. Grade:10/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 23, 2024 16:08:57 GMT -5
Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12Written by Karl Kerschl, Rob Levin, Delilah Dawson, Zipporah Smith and Herik Hanna Art by Karl Kerschl, Mike Norton, Serg Acuna, Karl Mostert and Charlie Adlard Summary: Batman and Maps fight a vampire menace, while the Gentleman Ghost rights a wrong, Swampthing soothes a murder victim and Batman helps a henchman go straight. Plot: Now we all know that any anthology is going to have its share of hits and misses but this issue might be my favorite as nearly every story was a solid hot for me with the Artemis story being a miss for me(I literally skipped it this month and I think it's over?) The only bad part is that this was the last issue with Karl Kerschl and his continuation of Gotham Academy with this team up between Maps and Batman was just so awesome on every level. Not only did we get to see Maps become more confident(and become an official Robin) but Kerschl just nailed Bruce's personality. I really wish he was the main writer for Batman. Aside from that I really enjoyed Rob Levin's team up between Falseface and Gentleman Ghost, it was really great to see these two characters reflect on what justice means to them as they are both traditionally villains and Levin really made them feel like multifaceted humans rather than simple villains. Building off that Smith gave us insight into helping a murder victim not only get justice but come to terms with his own death and the way it mirror Alec's own death made it really moving. It was short and sweet but it had a real punch to it. And ending the issue strong we got a story about Batman confronting a henchman before a big heist hoping to help the guy go straight. Sure, we've seen that kind of thing before but with Batman being constantly involved in big events of late it was nice to see a really grounded story like this. Anthologies ebb and flow with the talent behind them so who knows what next month will bring but I'm definitely going to keep supporting this book as I think one and done stories really suit characters like Batman really well. Art: Kerschl was definitely the best of the bunch, his sharp, clean line work is just a joy to see and his action is kinetic and easy to follow. Charlie Adlard's black and white work in Henchmen was really good too, the shadow work was really well done and gave the whole story a great, tense mood. Grade:8/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 22, 2024 20:20:36 GMT -5
Certainly sounds interesting
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 19, 2024 9:01:33 GMT -5
While the Marvel books were certainly entertaining and there was some solid storytelling and world building Dark Horse really took all that to another level.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 19, 2024 8:22:51 GMT -5
Helen of Wyndhorn continues to be interesting, the pacing is slow and the modern day framing scenes don't seem to add anything but the promise of a fictional world bleeding into the "real" world is interesting I'm looking forward to seeing it play out.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 19, 2024 5:27:14 GMT -5
Superman #13. part 2 of the Brainiac arc. I am loving this DC superstars idea of a new creative team with each arc. I love that you could feel Superman's anger and frustration. This looks like it will be a classic I almost never read modern Superman comics but I thought House of Brainiac sounded like it might be good. I’m enjoying it so far! Williamson's whole Superman run has been pretty awesome, definitely well worth checking out.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 18, 2024 16:32:51 GMT -5
Superman #13. part 2 of the Brainiac arc. I am loving this DC superstars idea of a new creative team with each arc. I love that you could feel Superman's anger and frustration. This looks like it will be a classic Yeah, the Brainiac story is shaping up to be pretty fun. It definitely plays heavily on Johns Brainiac story from the 2000's but there's nothing wrong with dusting off classic ideas if you execute them well.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 18, 2024 16:29:59 GMT -5
Roxxon Presents: Thor sounded like a fun idea in theory: a self referential parody comic poking fun at corporate messaging...but it fell really flat. I could sort of see what Ewing wanted to do with the issue but as much as I like him I just don't think he's a skilled enough writer to pull off this bit of metafiction. Props to Greg Land for being able to make fun of himself though.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 18, 2024 16:25:45 GMT -5
Nightwing #13. pretty much everything twthguardian said above. I'm not a fan of Heartless and I wasn't crazy about the art. But the 2 pages Marv Wolfman wrote? Totally awesome! Yeah, it was really a fantastic celebration of Dick Grayson and a great tribute to the work he and George Perez did on the character.
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